"The Intellect is a Point and a Circle": A Case Study in the Textual Relationship of Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani's Kitab al-Maqalid and the Longer Theology of Aristotle

Journal Article: Intellectual History of the Islamicate World Vol 10 Issue 3

Abstract: In his groundbreaking monograph Early Philosophical Shiism: The Ismaili Neoplatonism of Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī, Paul Walker has pointed out parallels between al-Sijistānī's Kitāb al-Maqālīd and the Longer Theology of Aristotle--an augmented version of the Theology of Aristotle preserved mainly in Judeo-Arabic manuscripts and a sixteenth-century Latin translation. This raises the question of whether it is al-Sijistānī who cites the Longer Theology, or the unknown author of the Longer Theology who cites al-Sijistānī, or whether the two rely on a common source. Walker opts for the third solution: a common source used by both al-Sijistānī and the Longer Theology. The present contribution focuses on one of the parallels between al-Sijistānī's Kitāb al-Maqālīd and the Longer Theology, demonstrates that Walker is indeed correct in postulating such a common source, and shows that this common source contained some of the most significant ideas for al-Sijistānī's Ismāʿīlī Neoplatonism: the idea that the Word (al-kalima) mediates between the Creator ("Originator," al-mubdiʿ) and the Intellect, that the Intellect is united with the Word, that the Word is "non-being" (lays), and several others. The article comments on the possible nature of this common source and on how the Longer Theology sheds light on the origins of al-Sijistānī's Ismāʿīlī Neoplatonism.

Author: Alexander Treiger
Link to Full Paper: Academia.edu

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